


He Said, He Said

by GatesKeeper



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel is Jack Kline's Parent, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Dean Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Canon, Sam Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent, Supportive Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24747658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GatesKeeper/pseuds/GatesKeeper
Summary: When Dean finds out people around Lebanon think that he and Cas are a couple, he tries to stop doing all the things Sam says have given them that impression: the standing too close, the bickering, the staring.And yet, when it starts to have a real impact on his relationship with his best friend, he's got to figure out why fixing people's assumptions is so damn important to him—and if there's any way to undo the damage he's done.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 30
Kudos: 156





	1. Chapter 1

“Dean, it’s not that big of a deal,” Sam sighs, carefully navigating the stairs with his arms full of groceries.

“To you, maybe! This isn’t some middle-of-nowhere town where we’re gonna be gone in a week. We _live_ here. I don’t want people thinking—”

“Thinking what?” Cas asks as the angel joins them in the entry room, grabbing one of the paper bags from Sam and surreptitiously checking the contents—most likely for the seeds he’d asked for. He wanted to start growing a small herb garden in the bunker—said it would be useful for spell work—which is true, but Dean also thinks he just likes growing shit.

Sam gives Dean a silent _Don’t be a jerk_ look that Dean promptly ignores. “Apparently, half the town thinks that you and I are gay married to each other or something.”

Cas tilts his head to the side, “Wouldn’t that just be married?”

“Dude. _Not_ the point.”

Castiel pauses, expectantly.

“The _point_ is that I’m not gay,” Dean explains as if it should be obvious. “And neither are you. So, what the hell is wrong with people…?”

Cas still looks confused. “I’m an angel, Dean. I’ve told you before that we’re completely indifferent to sexual orientation.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Dean sputters. “You meant you didn’t mind if two chicks want to get into each other’s pants. You didn’t mean that _you_ … right?”

“Not that I’m particularly interested in falling into bed with a stranger at the moment, but I would be just as interested in someone with a male form as a female one,” he shrugs, watching Dean with careful eyes.

“Oh…” The hunter reaches into one of the bags that he’d set on the map table, takes out a beer, and pops the tab open, his mind clearly going a mile a minute. “That’s cool…. I just… didn’t know, but now I do and, yeah….” He cuts himself off, abruptly.

Cas shakes his head, grabs his seeds, and then turns on his heel and leaves, Dean watching him go like he’s suddenly grown two heads.

As soon as he’s gone, Sam hits Dean across the chest.

“Ow! What was that for, Bitch?”

“Could you have _been_ any more awkward?”

“Yeah, trust me, I could,” Dean grumbles, taking a large swig. “We’ve known each other for over a decade! I’ve tried to set him up _loads_ of times—you think he could have mentioned it.”

“He’s in a vessel, Dean. He could have just as easily been a woman. He’s _been_ a woman before. Why would you assume there even is a ‘straight’ when it comes to angels?” Sam points out, swiping a beer of his own.

Dean scowls at the judgment in Sam’s tone. He’s got the evidence on his side on this one. “Maybe because the only people Cas _has_ gone for have been girls,” he argues, throwing his hands in the air.

“Yeah, I think that has more to do with the kind of people that come on to him than the other way around. Meg? That reaper, April? Kinda took the lead.”

That may be true. But Dean still doesn’t think he should be blamed for not guessing something he had no reason to guess. Not to mention, “That still doesn’t explain why the store clerk thought that _we_ were--”

Sam stares at Dean for a moment, before shaking his head in disbelief.

“What?”

“I mean, you gotta admit, you and Cas seem—close.”

“Of course we do, Sammy,” Dean says, offended. “He’s _family._ ”

“He is. But we didn’t introduce him to the town as a Campbell like we did you and me. And he doesn’t look like us. So, from the outside, it looks like you guys are two middle-aged, non-related men who live together and have the same kid refer to you as ‘Dad’….”

“Jack calls you ‘Dad’ too!” Dean interrupts.

“Yeah, but you and I argue like siblings. You and Cas bicker like an old married couple and then do that staring thing…”

Dean opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “I have no frickin’ idea what you’re talking about.”

“Seriously, Dean?” Sam asks, rolling his eyes, but the other hunter continues to wait him out.

“Oh my god, you’re _actually_ serious. How do you not know that you and Cas…?” The words die in Sam’s mouth. “You know what? I’ve got a video that Claire sent somewhere…” he murmurs, reaching for the phone in his pocket and quickly scrolling through his files. When he finds the correct one, he turns the screen around to face Dean, who squints enough at it that Sam should probably convince him to get his eyes checked.

It’s interesting to watch the play of emotions that go over Dean’s face—starting at annoyance, turning to slight disbelief, and then—there it is, his cheeks have started to turn red, the color moving swiftly towards his ears. “She filmed you for three minutes and 41 seconds before she got bored. I’ve thought about deleting it a hundred times, just because it takes up so much storage space, but then it was kinda useful for explaining things to Mom—and Garth thought it was funny, so….” Sam trails off, realizing he might have said too much.

“What do you mean _Mom_? You talked to Mom about--” At least, he didn’t sound _sad_ mentioning Mary for once.

“She just wanted to know what was up with you. And Cas. With you and Cas. Don’t worry, I explained you weren’t together or anything—”

“Why was that even a question?!”

Sam just raises the phone back up to eye level.

Dean smacks it away.

“She didn’t care, in case you were wondering,” Sam murmurs, putting the screen into sleep mode.

Dean’s frown thins slightly before he jabs a finger in Sam’s direction. “The next time someone brings this up, you _squelch_ it, you hear me?” He pokes Sam in the chest again. “Cas is our best friend—he's like a brother to us—and I don’t need you or Claire or the frickin’ post office guy making it weird for no reason.” Then, without waiting for an answer, he grabs the rest of the beer and heads in the direction of his bedroom.

Sam sighs down at the bags of groceries that still need to be unpacked. He can figure out what’s coming. And it’s not going to be pretty.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite _just_ going to the grocery store, they’re out of toilet paper two days later.

“Get me a new toothbrush while you’re out,” Sam tells Dean as he pulls on his jacket. “And get _you_ a new toothbrush!” he yells louder after Dean’s retreating figure. “I’m guessing you haven’t switched yours out in the last three months.”

Dean gives him the finger on his way out of the library, but knowing his little brother, he didn’t even look up from the dusty tome he’s studying.

“Going somewhere?” Cas wonders out-loud, suddenly appearing by his side. Dean definitely does not jump—but if he did, it’s only because he’s a hunter whose reflexes have stopped him from getting shot or stabbed an endless number of times.

“Yeah, we’re running low on ass wipes. I blame Sam’s fiber cereals.”

The left corner of the angel’s mouth twitches in amusement despite his obvious attempts to fight it, making Dean feel a little smug.

“Need anything while I’m out?” the hunter asks, patting his pockets for his keys.

“Some wire mesh.”

“Kinky.”

“It’s to keep squirrels away from the garden….”

They’re not going to have that at Shop-n-Save, but Dean supposes he can make a pit stop. Nodding in agreement, he heads toward the garage, only to have Cas follow behind him, the closeness making his shoulders tense. “…What’re you doing?”

“I thought I’d go with you.”

Dean’s face must do something weird thinking about that one check-out clerk because Cas takes a step back. “Although, now that I think of it, Jack wanted my help with--”

Dean waves Cas’s words away, feeling his stomach flip when he realizes that the angel learned _tact_ somewhere along the way—and it definitely wasn’t from him. “Whatever the kid needs, I’m sure he can deal for a little while. Go ahead and take shotgun…” Dean insists, sweeping his arm out so that Cas goes in front of him.

“If you’re sure…”

“Course I am,” he insists. “…Buddy.”

He pointedly ignores the way Cas studies his profile on the drive.

/////

There’s a crowd around the grocery store entrance. At first, Dean thinks it’s Girl Scouts selling cookies, which would be bad enough. He’s seen enough demons in little girls’ bodies not to trust those too-innocent smiles and calculating eyes. Plus, the cookies aren’t even real junk food—they’re chocolate-covered cardboard that Jack would probably eat as cereal.

But then he catches sight of what’s _really_ going on and wonders if he can get Cas back in the car before everything goes to Hell.

“It appears they’re hosting a pet adoption event,” Cas observes, and Dean knows it’s too late.

“Do you want to hold one?” a woman wearing a “Volunteer” t-shirt asks as they approach the front entrance. Now, if she were a demon or a vampire or anyone who knew the name Dean Winchester, she would definitely be terrified of the glare he’s shooting her way, but as it is, she seems oblivious to it—cuddling a small orange kitten to her chest. It has wild green-yellow eyes, fur that sticks on edge like it got into a fight with a balloon, and is so tiny that when Cas holds out his hands for it, it balances on them easily.

“Dude, we can’t have a cat.”

“I know, Dean.”

“So, don’t let yourself get attached.”

“I’m not.”

But then the kitten licks Cas’s face—which, _gross_ —and Cas _smiles_ at it, which Dean knows means he’s only a step away from defying the Grand Order for it unless he gets this situation under control.

“I already let you have Jack,” he protests.

Annoyed blue eyes flash over him. “He’s hardly a pet, Dean.”

“Well, no, but--”

A shadow appears over Dean’s left shoulder, cutting off his sentence. “Trust me, son,” the tall eighty-year-old whispers conspiratorially. “Learn to quit when you’re behind.”

Dean gives him a once-over—from the cap likely hiding a bald spot to the hands stuffed in his change-filled pockets to the buffed business shoes—determining he’s most likely a busybody, not a supernatural creature. “I think I’ve got this covered, thanks.”

“If you say so. I’ve been married to my girl forty-three years, and I’m still learning new ways I can mess up,” he confesses, nodding in the direction of a woman with once-blonde grey hair, watching a litter of kittens running around in circles inside a playpen.

Dean feels the outside of his body flush hot at the same time the rest of him goes cold. “Look, mind your own business, Grandpa--”

“I believe what Dean means to say,” Cas interrupts, the smile he wears tight and hard in all the ways it was loose and soft just a minute ago, “Is that we’re not involved. We’re roommates.” He hands the kitten back over to the volunteer, while the man mumbles his embarrassed apologies and excuses himself to rejoin his wife.

“Cas, I--” Dean begins, having no clue how he’s gonna end that sentence.

“We have errands to run,” Cas points out, heading into the store with such purpose that if Dean didn’t already know that the doors were automatic, he’d wonder if Cas pushed them open with his grace, the ends of his trench coat flapping in a sudden wind.

Usually, grocery shopping with Cas is fun—even if Dean doesn’t like to admit it. Though the angel had clocked in a good number of hours as a human—at a Gas-‘n-Sip, no less, where he was exposed to some of the weirdest inventions of mankind—some products still confuse him.

Dean’s favorite Castiel rants include SpaghettiOs _(“Why would anyone want to spell out words using their noodles, Dean? And, for that matter, there are far too many Z’s in one can to be practical.”_ ), “clean laundry”- scented laundry detergent ( _“This advertising is redundant."_ ) and the time he lost his shit over the sheer number of different kinds of Reese’s peanut butter cups available ( _“How can Reese’s Minis and Reese’s Miniatures be different sizes? For a relatively intelligent species, that's beyond illogical”_ ).

This time…doesn’t go like that. Maybe it’s because Dean is still antsy about what the guy said or maybe it’s Cas who is tenser than normal, but they walk down the first few aisles grabbing things without argument or even much discussion. Eventually, Cas decides to wander off on his own for some of the items they need, leaving Dean in the toilet paper aisle with no one to make “Angel Soft” jokes to.

And yet, when they meet up at the register—thankfully, not manned by the same dude from Tuesday—and Cas spots the aloe plant Dean picked up, surrounded by the seltzer water that Cas likes because he can feel the bubbles even if he can’t taste them—the mood shifts again, like a fallen vase being righted. Dean makes his Angel Soft joke anyway and Cas rolls his eyes, handing him items from the cart so that Dean can put them on the conveyer belt. And if their fingers brush in the process, Dean figures the same thing probably also happens with Sam.


End file.
